[pt] A evolução das técnicas de codificação digital, aliada aos esquemas eficientes de modulação para transmissões digitais, tornou possível o advento da TV digital (TVD). Entretanto, obter baixo custo nos terminais de acesso é fator crucial para o sucesso da TVD aberta, principalmente nos países em desenvolvimento. Para que o baixo custo comprometa o mínimo possível dos recursos dos terminais de acesso, é interessante que eles estejam isentos de custos adicionais como, por exemplo, software, propriedade intelectual e royalties. Um dos principais pontos para tornar isso possível concentra- se na escolha do middleware (que faz uso de mecanismos definidos por protocolos de comunicação, sistema operacional e suas bibliotecas) para suporte às aplicações. A maioria dos middlewares declarativos existentes privilegiam a interatividade em detrimento da sincronização. Entretanto, na maioria das vezes as aplicações de TVD devem lidar com a sincronização de objetos de diferentes tipos de mídia, além dos objetos de vídeo e áudio que compõem o fluxo principal. Assim, o sincronismo de mídias deve ser o foco da linguagem declarativa a ser utilizada pelo middleware, tratando a interatividade como um caso particular do sincronismo. Este trabalho tem como objetivo propor um middleware declarativo para sistemas de TVD interativa com foco no sincronismo de mídias. Na implementação do middleware proposto, a arquitetura modular do Formatador HyperProp, que serviu como base dessa implementação, foi reestruturada em um perfil simples, direcionado à TVD, e reimplementada na Linguagem C++. Todos os exibidores de mídia desenvolvidos atendem aos requisitos dos terminais de acesso de baixo custo. / [en] The evolution of digital modulation techniques and the efficient schemes for digital transmissions have allowed the advent of the digital TV. Conceiving low cost receivers is one of the main challenges to broaden digital TV use, mainly in non-developed countries. As a consequence, low cost requirements should not burden receiver resources that should try to reduce their costs in items such as software copyright and royalties. In this scenario, the middleware (which use mechanisms defined by the communication protocols, the operational system and its libraries) conception plays an important role. A great number of declarative middlewares focuses on user interaction instead of synchronization, in its broad sense. However, the majority of digital TV applications deals with different types of media-object synchronization, beyond the audio and video that compose the main stream. Thus, the declarative middleware language focus should be placed on synchronism, having user interaction as a special synchronization case. This is the goal of this work. The middleware implementation presented in this work is based on the modular architecture of the HyperProp Formatter, whose architecture was reorganized in a simple profile for digital TV systems. The implementation was carried out using C++ language, and all media players were developed to run in low cost receivers.

Several factors that are known to influence attitudes of students towards learning have been documented. Some of these factors have been found to affect the achievement of students. In this study the relationship of the attitudinal disposition of students to their learning outcomes were assessed. Chemistry attitude questionnaire was used to assess the attitude of students and a pen and paper examination comprising of questions requiring declarative and procedural knowledge were used to assess learning outcomes of students. Correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were used to assess relationship between attitude of students and their learning outcomes. The results showed that attitude of students had a positive but moderate influence on their performance. The ANOVA results showed a statistical significant relationship between attitude of students and students’ learning outcomes (F= 38.383, p=0.000). / Institute of Science and Technology Education / M.Sc. (Mathematics, Science and Technology Education)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DissMMS.pdf: 4127828 bytes, checksum: 4eaf19a5e50c0ead0c03d7a1f4b7b5c4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2003-04-25 / The companies inserted in the current dynamic context have discovered different ways to accomplish their activities and manage their processes. Regarding to NPD (New Product Development) process, it is possible to observe the adoption by companies of practices that enable better performance, efficient results and the continuous improvement of the process. The Stage-gates systematic can be considered as an example of these practices. This systematic divides the NPD in Stages interchanged by review and decision points, named gates. The gates goals are to evaluate accomplished activities, of which scope must be aligned to business strategy, and to decide if the condition of the process is to continue, to be postponed, to be recycled or even to be cancelled. Moreover, this systematic allows to structure moments to analyze the NPD process performance and manage continuous improvement, factors linked to creation and improvement of NPD process competences, that is, to learning organizational competences. The purpose of this work is to list the existing and explicit activities in the context of product development projects, and to discuss their association to the elements of the Declarative Knowledge of Organizational Learning. The research method was the case study, with characteristics of qualitative and descriptive analysis. The case was conducted in a Brazilian business unit of a multinational automotive company, through visits in order to follow some meetings and to interview people involved in the studied projects. The results of this work are the description and analysis of existing activities in NDP process that can be associated to the elements of Declarative Knowledge of Organizational Learning in the cross-team and within-team learning environment. Many practices, in the studied company, are almost ready to be used as learning activities addressed by Declarative Knowledge elements such as registering, reviewing, relating, keeping and sharing. These elements are presented in the company, especially in technical activities, but it is a matter of conscience to use them as improvement opportunities during the development process management. / As empresas inseridas no contexto dinâmico atual têm buscado maneiras diferenciadas para realizar suas atividades e gerenciar seus processos. Com relação ao processo de desenvolvimento de produtos (PDP), observa-se que as empresas estão adotando práticas que permitam desempenhos superiores, resultados eficientes e a melhoria contínua do processo. A sistemática de Stage-gates pode ser considerada um exemplo dessas práticas. Essa sistemática divide o PDP em fases intercaladas por pontos de revisão e decisão, denominados gates. Os objetivos do gates são avaliar as atividades realizadas, cujo escopo deve estar alinhado com a estratégia de negócios da empresa, e decidir se o processo tem condições de continuar, ser adiado, reprogramado ou mesmo cancelado. Além disso, essa sistemática permite estruturar momentos para analisar o desempenho do processo e buscar a melhoria contínua, fatores atrelados ao aspecto da criação e melhoria das capacidades do PDP, ou seja, à capacidade de aprender da empresa. Este trabalho tem como objetivos elencar as práticas existentes no contexto de projetos de desenvolvimento de produtos e discutir a associação dessas práticas aos elementos do Conhecimento Declarativo da Aprendizagem Organizacional. O método de pesquisa adotado foi o estudo de caso, com características de análises qualitativas e descritivas. O caso foi conduzido em uma unidade de negócios brasileira de uma empresa multinacional do setor automotivo, por meio de visitas para acompanhar algumas reuniões de projetos e entrevistar pessoas envolvidas no desenvolvimento de produto. Os resultados deste trabalho são a descrição e análise das práticas já existentes no PDP e que estão associadas aos elementos do Conhecimento Declarativo da Aprendizagem Organizacional nos ambientes intra e interequipe. Muitas práticas, na empresa estudada, estão quase prontas para serem usadas como atividades de aprendizagem direcionadas pelos elementos do Conhecimento Declarativo, tais como documentar, revisar, relacionar, armazenar e compartilhar. Estes elementos estão presentes na empresa, particularmente em atividades técnicas, mas, é uma questão de conscientização, utilizá-los como oportunidades de melhoria durante a gestão do PDP.

Declarative memory is characterized as a conscious, explicit memory. Declarative memory consists of two essential systems, semantic memory and episodic memory. Episodic memory enables us to recall specific past events. A simplified model, so called Episodic-like memory is often used to study episodic memory mechanisms. According to this model, all events are stored in a contextual framework consisting of three basic components: identity of the object ('what' happened), temporal information ('when' it occurred) and spatial information ('where' did it happen). This type of memory is testable not only in humans but also in animal models. Aim of this diploma thesis is to study the neuronal substrate of individual components of episodic memory in healthy volunteers by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and ecologically valid tasks designed in virtual reality environment. Results obtained in the fMRI paradigm show that apart from common neuronal substrate of episodic memory, additional brain structures are responsible for recollection of individual components of the episodic-like memory. Behavioral data indicate that the demands of the recollection of individual components is not equivalent. Additional analyses with parcellation of the brain to individual structures and consecutive...

Recent trends show that learners’ enrolment and performance in science at secondary school level is dwindling. Some science topics including genetics in biology are said to be difficult for learners to learn and thus they perform poorly in examinations. Teacher knowledge base, particularly topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), has been identified by many researchers as an important factor that is linked with learner understanding and achievement in science. This qualitative study was an attempt to explore the PCK of four successful biology teachers and how they developed it in the context of teaching genetics. The purposive sampling technique was employed to select the participating teachers based on their schools’ performance in biology public examinations and recommendations by science specialists and school principals. Pedagogical content knowledge was used as a theoretical framework for the study, which guided the inquiry in data collection, analysis and discussion of the research findings. The study adopted the case study method and various sources of evidence including concept maps, lesson plans, pre-lesson interviews, lesson observations, post-teaching teacher questionnaire, post-lesson interviews and document analysis were used to collect data on teachers’ PCK as well as how PCK was assumed to have developed. The data were analysed in an attempt to determine the individual teachers’ school genetics’ content knowledge, related knowledge of instructional strategies and knowledge of learners’ preconceptions and learning difficulties. The analysis involved an iterative process of coding data into PCK categories of content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of learners’ preconceptions and learning difficulties. The findings of the study indicate that the four successful biology teachers generally have the necessary content knowledge of school genetics, used certain topic-specific instructional strategies, but lacked knowledge of genetics-related learners’ preconceptions and learning difficulties despite having taught the topic for many years. There were some instructional deficits in their approaches and techniques in teaching genetics. The teachers failed to use physical models, teacher demonstration and/or learner experimentation in their lessons (or include them in their lesson plans) to assist learners in visualizing or internalizing the genetics concepts or processes located at the sub-microscopic level. The teachers’ PCK in genetics teaching was assumed to have developed mainly through formal university education programmes, classroom teaching experiences, peer support and participation in in-service workshops. The implications for biology teacher education are also discussed. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Humanities Education / PhD / Unrestricted

Cognitive deficit presents a significant problem affecting the life of schizophrenia patients. Despite the variability of the deficit, which influences almost all cognitive domains, the most profound seems to be deficit in memory and executive functioning with direct impact on daily functioning of patients with schizophrenia. As the pharmacologic interventions do not seem to bring satisfying results, the cognitive remediation seems to bet the most effective way of intervention of the deficit. Efficacy of cognitive remediation approach was repeatedly confirmed on the level of structural and functional changes of the brain. Nevertheless, often discussed are the issues of ecological validity of cognitive remediation and its controversial ability of transfer of acquired abilities and skills into the real life. In this work, we present development of a new method potentially applicable in the remediation of deficit of declarative memory in schizophrenia patients designed in ecologically valid environment of virtual supermarket. In the first two pilot studies, we tested the functionality of the task in the healthy volunteers and we compared their performance in the virtual task with the results in standard psychological memory tests. After considering the findings from the pilot studies, we verified the...

Für eine konsistente Rechtevergabe in betrieblichen Anwendungssystemen ist die Einbeziehung umfassender intra- und interorganisationeller Strukturen unabdingbar. Die Kernproblematik aktueller Ansätze beruht auf der inkonsistenten Zuweisung von Aufgabenträgern bei der Rechtevergabe. Die Problematik fällt speziell bei aufbauorganisatorischen Änderungen, wie der Einstellung, der Versetzung und dem Ausscheiden von Aufgabenträgern in Unternehmen, ins Gewicht. Das Resultat der inkonsistenten Rechtevergabe ist die Verletzung von (Sicherheits-)Richtlinien in den Unternehmen. Der Neuheitswert der Arbeit basiert vorrangig auf der Entwicklung eines aufbauorganisatorischen Metamodells und einer korrespondierenden deklarativen Anfragesprache. Diese Komposition ermöglicht die konsistente Rechtevergabe und damit einhergehend die Einhaltung der (Sicherheits-)Richtlinien in den betrieblichen Anwendungssystemen. Des Weiteren wird der Wartungsaufwand in den betrieblichen Anwendungssystemen bei den erwähnten aufbauorganisatorischen Änderungen reduziert.

As business requirements evolve with increasing information density and velocity, there is a growing need for efficiency and automation of Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) processes. Current approaches for the modeling and optimization of ETL processes provide platform-independent optimization solutions for the (semi-)automated transition among different abstraction levels, focusing on cost and performance. However, the suggested representations are not abstract enough to communicate business requirements and the role of the process quality in a user-centered perspective has not yet been adequately examined. In this paper, we introduce a novel methodology for the end-to-end design of ETL processes that takes under consideration both functional and non-functional requirements. Based on existing work, we raise the level of abstraction for the conceptual representation of ETL operations and we show how process quality characteristics can generate specific patterns on the process design.

In complex information systems, it is often crucial to evaluate whether a sequence of activities obtained from a system log complies with behavioural rules. This process of evaluation is called conformance checking, and the most classical approach to specifying the behavioural rules is in the form of flow chartlike process diagrams, e.g., in the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) language. Traditionally, control flow constraints are extracted using Petri net replay-based approaches. Though, with the use of industrial process query languages such as Signavio Analytics Language (SIGNAL) that allows for temporal row matching, the possibility of performing conformance checking using temporal constraints opens up. To this end, this thesis presents a parser for extracting control-flow objects from BPMN-based business process models and a compiler for generating both linear temporal logic-like rules as well as SIGNAL queries. The parser succeeds at parsing all industry models and most academic models; the exceptions in the latter case can presumably be traced back to edge cases and unidiomatic modelling. The constraints generated by the compiler are in some, but not in all cases, identical to constraints extracted via Petri net replay as an intermediate step, indicating some differences in the formal interpretation of BPMN control flow. In conclusion, the implementation and evaluation of the parser and compiler indicate that it is feasible to move directly from business user-oriented process models to declarative, query language-based constraints, cutting out the Petri net-replay middleman and hence facilitating elegant and more efficient process data querying.

<p>Secure Access For Everyone (SAFE), is an integrated system for managing trust</p><p>using a logic-based declarative language. Logical trust systems authorize each</p><p>request by constructing a proof from a context---a set of authenticated logic</p><p>statements representing credentials and policies issued by various principals</p><p>in a networked system. A key barrier to practical use of logical trust systems</p><p>is the problem of managing proof contexts: identifying, validating, and</p><p>assembling the credentials and policies that are relevant to each trust</p><p>decision. </p><p>SAFE addresses this challenge by (i) proposing a distributed authenticated data</p><p>repository for storing the credentials and policies; (ii) introducing a</p><p>programmable credential discovery and assembly layer that generates the</p><p>appropriate tailored context for a given request. The authenticated data</p><p>repository is built upon a scalable key-value store with its contents named by</p><p>secure identifiers and certified by the issuing principal. The SAFE language</p><p>provides scripting primitives to generate and organize logic sets representing</p><p>credentials and policies, materialize the logic sets as certificates, and link</p><p>them to reflect delegation patterns in the application. The authorizer fetches</p><p>the logic sets on demand, then validates and caches them locally for further</p><p>use. Upon each request, the authorizer constructs the tailored proof context</p><p>and provides it to the SAFE inference for certified validation.</p><p>Delegation-driven credential linking with certified data distribution provides</p><p>flexible and dynamic policy control enabling security and trust infrastructure</p><p>to be agile, while addressing the perennial problems related to today's</p><p>certificate infrastructure: automated credential discovery, scalable</p><p>revocation, and issuing credentials without relying on centralized authority.</p><p>We envision SAFE as a new foundation for building secure network systems. We</p><p>used SAFE to build secure services based on case studies drawn from practice:</p><p>(i) a secure name service resolver similar to DNS that resolves a name across</p><p>multi-domain federated systems; (ii) a secure proxy shim to delegate access</p><p>control decisions in a key-value store; (iii) an authorization module for a</p><p>networked infrastructure-as-a-service system with a federated trust structure</p><p>(NSF GENI initiative); and (iv) a secure cooperative data analytics service</p><p>that adheres to individual secrecy constraints while disclosing the data. We</p><p>present empirical evaluation based on these case studies and demonstrate that</p><p>SAFE supports a wide range of applications with low overhead.</p> / Dissertation